RE: [Asrg] Two ways to look at spam

 At 03:35 PM 6/29/2003 -0400, Paul Judge wrote:
 > >Just as in any other business, the profit in spamming is equal to revenues
 > >minus costs. In spamming, revenue is equal to the number of spam messages
 > >received times the response rate times the profit per item. Expenses include
I will point out that the hard evidence for this is lacking.

I realize that people go nuts at the suggestion that the world is
completely whack-o and not nice and neat as they presume.

But in truth for all we know 99% of the spam is being produced by
well-funded Al Qaeda operatives intent on disrupting the internet and
has virtually no commercial value as described.

It's not that much harder to believe than the sort of .00001% return
arguments many seem comfortable with. Of course, this doesn't mean
there isn't ONE or TEN spammers who operate as supposed, I just wonder
if they're actually responsible for the problem.

Before the howling begins let me point out that I have finally made
some inroads here showing that the amplification via hijacked servers
is probably much more important to the spam problem than, for example,
a rational profit motive (i.e., without stolen resources there would
probably be no possibility of profit.)

I realize that's closely related and would tend to support a
profit-motivativation of some sort but, as with organized crime, is it
the profit motive (e.g., profits on stolen goods) or the crime (the
low cost of stealing goods) which underlies the problem?

More to the point I would assert that if we don't endeavor to nail
down hard evidence and work forward from there we're in great danger
of shadow-boxing with our own imaginings about how we would like to
think spammers operate.

I realize the urge to show progress is great and fact-gathering sounds
like a frustrating impediment to some, but...how bad would it be if
our efforts turned out to be foolish and disconnected from reality,
research into a June bug*?

* June Bug: Famous (among some) case of a psychosomatic, non-existant,
insect seriously disrupting several textile factories down south.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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